Please do not read this if you have any sensitivities to what was mentioned above. As someone who has been through some rough experiences, I understand how these things can make one feel. Please read at your own risk.

Also, for those of you who have to have perfect grammar, the grammar inconsistencies and mistakes are in the piece for poetic purpose.

Letter to Rapist

You thought yourself strong as you pushed me down on that bed and striped me of my dignity, tossing it on the cold floor. You thought I wouldn’t mind if you took me, bent over, while the world around me turned black and shattered. You thought it was ok when I was drunk and laughing, but I wasn’t laughing when you broke my trust. It wasn’t ok when I woke up to you next to me, your hand groping for that secret place inside me. You thought it was what I wanted, even when I said no. Even when I screamed and cried, pushing you away. Even when I passed out, naked and broken on the floor. Even when you touched me as if I was a porcelain doll, afraid to crack something you found so fragile, then proceeded to fuck me so hard I bled. It wasn’t ok.

But in your eyes, the world’s eyes, this pain was my fault. In your mind I loved you, wanted you, craved you. I needed to be violated as you tethered me to the bed and blinded my eyes with handkerchiefs I used to tie back my hair; that was your delusion. And when you were done with me, you picked me up and tossed me aside like a used rag. You didn’t care who I was. You didn’t care about me. All you wanted was a quick lay, and you didn’t even ask. You just took. And so now, I am another trophy, another notch on your belt, so you can go and tell your friends, “Hey, I had sex with her.” And at that moment, I bet you were proud of yourself. But when you saw my tears, heard my pain, it became my fault, my problem. The guilt strangled me, cutting off my air until I could no longer breathe. But it was my fault.

My fault.

It was my fault that you felt the need to assault me, rape me, destroy me from the inside out until I no longer wanted to live because who could ever love a piece of trash. And I didn’t dare go to the police. Why would they help me, when it’s my fault? Why would I want to fight the court system? Be violated by doctors and tell my story over and over until it becomes my life, my world, just so you can laugh and say that you did nothing wrong and that she’s lying? Besides, I didn’t want to deal with another man, not today, afraid and alone, wounded and crying.

I wonder how many other women you have done this to. I should have been smarter. I should have listened to the rumors. I shouldn’t have gone off by myself. I shouldn’t have trusted you, but I did. And for that I am sorry, not for your actions or what they did to me. I am sorry for my own crimes of which I am only guilty of being the girl foolish enough to believe that you were different. I wish I hadn’t been wrong.

But through this pain, I have become stronger. I will not be kept down. I will not be silent. I will not stop. What you did to me was wrong. I am not a trophy, a rag, or a piece of trash. I am a woman, strong and alive. After you spent so much time and effort destroying me, I can say you failed. I know life. I know the meaning of true love and companionship, strength, courage, and beauty. You? All you’ll ever know is the company of your hand as you jerk off to the Eagles or Bob Marley every night. I’d say I feel sorry for you, but I’d be lying. Hey, it’s your own damn fault.

Hey bloggers! I told you I’d be back and here I am, ready to lay down some more of my radical opinions and stories.

Today, I wanted to have an open discussion. I want to ask questions because frankly, I don’t understand what’s going on in the world anymore. Let’s break it down into three topics. I think that’ll be enough for today.

Topic One: Chick-fil-a

Chick-fil-a has been in the news a lot lately for supporting anti-gay groups throughout the US. And unless you’ve been living under a rock or have no access to either television or internet, then you know all about the different protests and support that Chick-fil-a has gotten. My question is this: Why is gay marriage such a problem? I don’t understand that. You see, I understand that in Leviticus in The Bible it states that “No man shall lie with another man”. Got it. But I also know that in Romans Jesus said, “But you are now above the law through my love.” So…didn’t Jesus say it was okay to ignore those laws in Leviticus? Because, I don’t know, as a woman, I don’t want to have to wear skirts all the time. It might get tedious, and I don’t think I have enough of them anyway. The world should also be about love, not about hate. Why is stopping the union of two people a good thing? Isn’t hate just getting in the way of love? Isn’t that just Satan cutting in front of Jesus? Just a thought…

Topic Two: College. While not in the media as much (unless something terrible happens at a college) I know that college life needs a complete overhaul. Students are miserable, and with the economy in such a fragile state (my opinions on this will probably be expressed in another blog…so stay tuned!) no one can afford to go to college. Tuition costs are rising as is poverty. So where does that leave America? Well, for one you get a lot of students who don’t go to college because they can’t afford it. Sometimes it’s easier to just graduate from high school and then move on to a career (and we know how much American’s like easy). And, for the souls who do attend college because the job they want to have when they graduate requires a degree, suddenly find themselves caught up in a whirlwind of debt. Now what? You spend the rest of your life trying to pay back loans to an overpriced school so you can do what you have always dreamed of. You become caught by the money wheel. I think that America just needs to make public education through Bachelors degree free for all. College may not have to be mandatory, but it will at least let those who opt for the college path have a little less stressful life when they graduate by not having to pay back massive debts on top of their other bills and such. What do you think? How should students stand up against this?

Topic Three: Shootings

Stop for a moment. Close your eyes (well read this first and then close your eyes) and imagine what would drive you to shoot random strangers in a movie theater or a temple or a school or anywhere else.

….

Have you thought about it?

Really thought about it?

Ok, what was your answer?

Did it have to do with hate by chance? Or anger perhaps? Or misunderstanding?

Think about the people who just died because we as citizens did not listen to the shooter. Because we missed something that was off. Because we are lazy and refuse to stand up and fight for a better world without hate, where everyone can get the help that they need. Didn’t ever think to put yourself in the equation did you? No, you are far away from those shootings. It had nothing to do with you. But in reality, it has everything to do with you, with us, as a country, as a whole. There is a reason behind these shootings. It could be insanity, it could be anger or hate, it could be they were trying to prove a point. It doesn’t matter. We are all a part of the system that brought these people to kill others. Don’t you think it’s time we changed our system? Maybe then, the violence and cycle of hate would stop. People could actually get the help they needed for once.

Well..there you have it. My three questions and points. What do you think? Because I honestly need an answer from someone else out there. Am I so wrong? What should we do?

So, I know I haven’t been blogging lately and I apologize. When you work more than 40 hours a week, you get lax on a few things. Sorry!

Anyway, after a few days away from the land of Facebook, I decided to get on and check my feed. On it was a post from my favorite radio station as a child: 106.9 The Light. In case you don’t know, 106.9 is a Contemporary Christian radio station. Yes, I’m Christian, Catholic in fact, and growing up I loved listening to this station. Naturally, I am friends with the station on Facebook. Why not? So, when I opened my feed this morning there was a post from them describing how all Christian should stand together with Chick-fil-a against gay marriage. My heart sunk.

I guess I should have saw it coming. I mean, they are a Christian radio station, but it still bothers me. We should be about love, not hate, not discrimination.

Here’s what I left on their wall:”I’m sorry, but I completely disagree with 106.9 stance on this, and I apologize in advance for everyone who gets angry over this comment.

Jesus was a proponent of love, not hatred. By denying rights to all citizens in the US, we are actively going against what Jesus wanted. He never said, “love thy neighbor, unless they are gay.” He said: “love they neighbor as thyself”. It doesn’t matter who your neighbor is or what they believe. By denying the simple right to marry for love we are hurting and discriminating against other humans. Our persecution of the gay community is just as bad as the persecution of the African American community. The gay community isn’t asking for something outlandish, just to be treated with respect, which is something every human deserves. You wouldn’t like it if America decided that you weren’t allowed to marry because you are, let’s say for example, below the poverty line. How is that fair? I know that it says in the Old Testament to “not lie with another man” because “it is against God’s will” but the Old Testament was a set of rules and stories to help govern a people in a different time over a millennium ago. America is so hard headed that it won’t listen when it’s own people are crying. How does that make us any better than the Pharaoh oppressing the Jews so many years ago? The difference is, now, there is no Moses to help lead them out of persecution. After Jesus died and was raised, God left the world for us to love, and we can’t even do that right. When you turn on the news, what do you see? Hatred, anger, violence. All people want is love and to be accepted for who they are.

Also, you can be Christian and a liberal. I am. Jesus also said in the New Testament, to “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and give to God what is God’s”. God has no care for our earthly problems. Money doesn’t mean anything to Him. Granting rights to people to be who they are doesn’t really have anything to do with politics either if you think about it. Not everyone believes in God and so for us to force our beliefs on another through laws is called persecution. Politics and religion should always be kept separate. Jesus even said that. The right way to rule a country doesn’t come by forcing religion on the people who inhabit it, especially such a melting pot like America. What if America was an atheist country and Christians weren’t allowed to celebrate Christmas? What if we were banned from going to church? By denying the right to marry to the gay community, we are in effect doing the same thing. I am a teacher, and so I see students who are afraid to go to school because they are gay or lesbian. They are afraid to ask questions and seek safe solutions because they are questioning their sexuality. And so, they kill themselves, or others, or sink into depression, or drop out of school. Another teacher told me in a conference (we were addressing the issue of bullying) about a student (no names were given) who was so harassed because of his sexuality that he took razors to the bottom of his feet everyday to punish himself for his sexuality. Mind you, this bullying took place at a Christian school. Tell me how that’s Christian? Tell me how denying others simple rights is wrong? How does that go against God’s love? He loves us so much. Why can’t we love like He did? God doesn’t selectively choose who He is going to love. He created all of us, gay, straight, man, woman, you name it. I don’t think God is going to deny a gay man who loves Him and follows His word.

Also, “One Nation Under God” was put into the Constitution so that the Constitution would be voted on and get approved. None of the Founding Fathers were Christian. They were Deists, but they wanted people to vote for the Constitution, so they put that in there. America, from the very beginning, has always been a country that has been founded on the will of the people. Politicians will say and do anything to get the vote. It’s been that way since the beginning, and is still that way today. The Founding Fathers were afraid of Christianity because of their experiences in England. Christianity is a powerful force and because of that, millions of people had to move to a new land because England’s “Christianity” didn’t accept their version of “Christianity”.

We, as Christians, as Americans, need to catch up with the world and start looking at love, not hatred.

By the way, if this is what it means to be Christian: to only love those who follow The Bible to a tee, to hurt those who want the same rights as us, to turn our back on our fellow humans, then what does it mean to be a Pharisee? Aren’t Christians today becoming like the Pharisee’s from Jesus’s time? “I will accept you, but only if you follow my rules. Go ahead, denounce who you are, ignore your feelings for the rest of your life, but hey, at least you’ll be accepted.” Jesus accepted everyone who was willing to come to Him. Even those who the Pharisee’s rejected because they did not follow Jewish law. Let’s be real Christians, not Pharisees.”

Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m crazy. Maybe I have no right to be upset about this, but I can’t stand those who hate.

This is a short non-fiction essay on connections in today’s world. Enjoy!

Today, everyone is connected, whether you want to be or not. It takes less than a day to travel to the other side of the world. Commerce ties us together, being something that most everyone has access to. If you don’t have a car, hop on a bus or catch the subway. And, if you don’t like to travel, you can always discover the world through the internet, which is the less costly but also less fun version of connecting with others. Yet, are we really connected or pretending to be? More and more I hear cries for love, comfort, peace, connection. More and more I hear cries for that touch of humanity that we all crave. Some of us are lucky to have this glimpse of humanity, this gentle touch and breath from those that we cherish and pray cherish us in return. Some of us are not so lucky. Some of us walk the streets begging for nourishment of any kind, holding out our hands, hoping that someone will reach out and grab them saying that they are there for us, that they understand, that they will be our connection with life.

Most of our problems today started with connections, but of the wrong sort. A long time ago, in a history class that you may remember, there were people who sought to find others on this planet. This was when it took a day to get to your neighbors house, when travel was done of the back of an animal if you were lucky, or foot if you weren’t. These people didn’t set out to explore the world to find friends. They set out on these long journeys to find profit; to sell their merchandise to others, to capture land and steal crops, to rape and pillage, to make money from what others had that they didn’t. These were the connections that our world started out with. Even those fleeing from their homes to find a new land, a safe place to live, only sought for themselves, never for another. We humans are selfish creatures and our connections are only for profit, at least this is what history tells us.

Yet isn’t it so today? What do you see when you watch the news and go to work? Do you see people attempting to make connections today for the benefit of another? Is that why there is so much killing and pain? Is that why there are eating disorders, suicide, bombings? No. It is the parasitic connections and/or lack of fulfilling connections that causes the world such misery. People fight to live. Corporations fight for the biggest profit. Countries fight for land and resources. And all the while, the land is dying underneath our greedy hands, crying for mercy, begging for water and not blood to cover the ground, and we ignore it. We are too wrapped up in our own little game of War to care about another human being. You know what they say, “All is fair in love and war”. I see the war, now, where is the love?

I honestly believe that that is the problem of today’s world. It isn’t so much that we are connected. It is that we are connected for the wrong reasons. We are connected for our own selfish gain. Why can we not be connected for love? Would it be so hard to help one person in need? Even if all you do is hug a crying mother losing her child to cancer, you have done something. You have made a connection that will stand up against all of the war and pain that is in this world. One hug, one heart, one hope, one love.

One love.

Do you hear me? One love.

Think what would happen if all of those poisoned connections around the world turned in to connections of love, all of the profit and selfishness changed in to joining hearts and spreading compassion. What if a company expanded to offer its services and products to a place in need instead of to make a profit? What if every church accepted every person for who they were instead of what they’ve done? What if we saw people for people instead of cattle to make money? We would save lives. If everyone knew they were loved, they wouldn’t be so afraid. Maybe we could seek help for our problems that we face, not be terrified to ask because we can’t afford to pay the price that help has so often cost. Maybe you wouldn’t want to kill yourself. Maybe you wouldn’t think you were ugly. Maybe you wouldn’t have to worry about having anything to eat or drink. Maybe you wouldn’t have to worry about not being able to afford medicine. Maybe you could love too. Maybe we could all love. And I’m not talking about spiritual love. It doesn’t matter what religion you are or even if you have one, the deity(ies) of your religion can only do so much for you. Every religion preaches of loving one another and accepting people for who they are. It is up to us. We are here, on this earth, right now. It is our task to love one another. It is our task to make those connections of love, to grab the hands of those who reach out to us and say, “I understand. I will be your connection to love”.

So, for the past few days I’ve been sick which is why I’m missing two days from my blogging life. I apologize to all of my readers out there. Sorry!!! But, because I’ve been sick, I have gotten to read some, and I just finished Paolo Bacigalupi’s book The Windup Girl.

Let me start by saying that this is a wonderful novel. If you don’t know anything about it, it’s a sci-fi novel set in the future of our planet (which I believe may not be so distant after all). The book takes place in Thai country. The world is riddled with man-made diseases and calories become a type of currency and commodity. Yes, I’m talking food calories. The world is run on calories and labor instead of gasoline and coal. It is in this setting that Bacigalupi introduces the main characters, who end up fighting for their life in a place where food companies run the world and the city threatens to collapse in on them everyday. I would definitely recommend this novel to everyone, whether you like sci-fi or not. Bacigalupi uses this brilliant book to illustrate some keys points about humanity and the threats that our current society is placing on our own world.

Hello bloggers! Yesterday I completed a painting and I was very eager to put it up on my blog this morning. Due to technological difficulties, I am sorry to say that there will be no posting of a painting. Hopefully I can fix this issue soon and it will be up for everyone to see. Sorry about that!

This painting is called “Bluebonnets Under the Oak” and is by David G. Paul. I really love this picture and the Monet feeling that it has to it. You can buy it on the site Artist rising or you can post your own art to sell. Enjoy!!!

PS Cross your fingers that I get the photo issues fixed! 🙂 Thanks for reading!